Sunday, 20 April 2014

Raphael Freeblade - Knight Eternal.

Phheeeeeewwww… It took what felt like a small eternity and I still can’t call him finished, but I have pictures to share.

I feel a great sense of achievement and excitement, despite what was an odd journey of direction changes and experiments. I started with an image of a black skull mask and bone motifs, but wasn’t feeling the faceplate at all. I then painted another helmet and decided I do like the bare head the best. I feel like I failed the heraldic hero look, but got a very bad ass war machine.

I still need to work on the base, the exhausts and little washes here and there for the metallics. But not before I take a brake with the next exciting thing. (picture below the Knight pics)

I really enjoyed the airbrush, oils and my new set up. I learned and fine tuned many new effects here, that I want to apply on tanks and more manageable sized projects in the near future. Being able to add just the right amount of gloss / matt as a final finish is something I’ve dreamt of for a decade. Pledge floor wash mixed with the wanted amount of Tamiya flat medium and airbrushed exactly where needed does the trick perfectly!

Hope you like him!

PS. Next comes my take on the new Storm Trooper Kit. I've always struggled with all thing Mechanicus looking too lobotomized. It fits servitors well, but not the breadth and depth of great fluff and many facets of the organization that is fast becoming it's own detachment in the project. I really enjoyed reading the HH series book about Mechanicus civil war, with Knights, techno-assassins and aspects of the organization I want to play with.

When I first saw the new models, I instantly thought they'd make a wicked Mechanicus unit. Imagine the best trained and equipped, fully augmented, Skitari shock troop. These are counts as Imperial fist scouts. I'm building a detachment of "Sentinels of Mars" to round out the army to 2000pts and the Golden Throne Grand Tournament in August. I want the army to look good, but also work very well.

14 comments:

Wonderful looking Knight! I really like how the drab colors are accented by the yellow and black chevrons, particularly the shoulder. It is nice to see it finally come together; the Knight is certainly a long process.

Now on to your Skitari shock troops. Wow, they look wonderful! It did not occur to me how well the hellguns would work for bolters, but this make is very clear! The simple magazine swap really goes a long way (and gets rid of those ridiculously large cables...), and as bolters it makes more sense that they lack of stocks. The heavy bolter looks great too, and with the kroot barrel on it, it ties it together with the others nicely. The turning of the lights/targeters/cameras on their shoulders to face the way they are looking was a really nice touch too! All around awesome models!

Thank you. It's a tricky balance, I definitely ended up heavily on the muted side - the hazard stripes try to balance some of that, but maybe I should've had a few sections of darker, brighter green in there.

Fantastic looking Knight. The drab earthy tones look great with the bold caution stripes. I also particularly like the scorched look of the exhaust pipes on the model's back.

Your Mechanicus unit looks incredible! The modifications to their rifles look brilliant and really bring out the spec ops carbine look. The heavy bolter works perfectly for them too. Your thought to reposition the targeting systems on their shoulders was a wonderful idea, and one I am going to have to take to doing as well!

Keep up the great work and I look forward to your other 15 Mechanicus troopers!

I have seen a lot of painted Knights in the internet the past couple months, but I must say that yours is one of the most effective paintjobs yet. I reckon it must be difficult to balance the amount of detailing you put into a large kit like that, and it is easy to do wrong - either add so little detail that the machine looks to bland, or too much, so it looks too crowded.

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ABOUT

Welcome to Legion of Plastic, a series of artistic endeavors and musings, and a celebration of converting and painting English science-fiction miniatures. This is a space for storytelling and wild imagination in truly Gothic fashion.

I grew up marveling John Blanche's work and the worlds and characters he birthed. My goal is to render Games Workshop art in miniature form. Raw like weather, laden with emotion, action and sense of scale.

Games Workshop has largely gone from strength to strength the past few years, yet I feel some of the core products deserve to be critically challenged. The basic Space Marine kit for example is a badly proportioned oversight, failing to capitalize the wonderful background and imagery.